Now Cinemax, Sky and Left Bank have agreed to produce one more season, with much of the production team (including frequent director Michael Bassett) intact. The returning cast has yet to be announced, but I can't imagine a circumstance under which they'd do another year without both Philip Winchester and Sullivan Stapleton.

On the one hand, I'm disappointed that these next 10 episodes will be the last for the series. On the other, it's better to go away before we get sick of you. A four-year run (five if you count the Armitage episodes) is a really respectable one for an efficient, surprisingly effective bit of pulp fiction like this.

"Strike Back" was Cinemax's first real dip into the waters of original programming, done as a co-production with the Brits. It was followed by another UK collaboration in "Hunted," which ended prematurely because Cinemax and the BBC had different expectations for it. (Frank Spotnitz is still working on a spin-off project about Melissa George's character.) Now Cinemax has started making shows entirely on its own, whether in a similarly pulpy vein ("Banshee," which really grew on me over its first season) or something a bit more highbrow (Steven Soderbergh's "The Knick," an upcoming drama starring Clive Owen as a doctor at a New York hospital in 1900). Especially after the experience with "Hunted," I assume the goal is for Cinemax to have complete control of its shows going forward, which leaves "Strike Back" as a vestige of an old plan.

Sad it's going. Excited to see just how much mayhem the boys can get into before they're done, one way or the other.

Alan Sepinwall has been reviewing television since the mid-'90s, first for Tony Soprano's hometown paper, The Star-Ledger, and now for HitFix. His new book, "The Revolution Was Televised," about the last 15 years of TV drama, is for sale at Amazon. He can be reached at sepinwall@hitfix.com

I really loved the original BBC Series/pilot & the inital few seasons rework by Cinemax was really fantastic. For India/Latif Season I remember being so pleasantly surprised & being unable to wait for the next episode but since then it was progressively downhil from there so much that this last season was IMO pretty predictable that it was unwatchable. Sad to see this series diluted in quality so much with increased viwership & fandom.

As a huge Strike Back fan this is terrible news at 8:25 in the evening! I should have turned on my computer earlier. Oh well, I hope the cast/staff goes on to have successful careers after next season.

Damn! I've been waiting for Hunted to come back; so many questions left unanswered: who is she, what happened to her in that barn, what's her boss hiding about who she really is AND who set her up in that cantina that got her shot and lost her child??